A rough guide to living longer

Ever since Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon went hunting for the Fountain of Youth, the visionaries who have sought to avoid growing old have been noted more for their enthusiasm - some would say for their gullibility - than for solid science.

No longer: the past few years have seen an explosion of sober research on the biology of ageing, and we now know that it is indeed possible to greatly extend the lifespans of every sort of organism from yeast to mice. The time is certainly ripe to ask what this emerging science means for our own chances of living, say, 150 years.

This is the terrain Greg Critser sets out to explore in Eternity Soup. Critser, an American journalist whose last book dealt with the modern epidemic of obesity, takes readers on an entertaining romp through some of the leading ideas on how to extend our lifespan, introducing us to a wide range of oddball characters en route.

One of the most reliable ways to get mice to live longer, for example, is to chronically underfeed them - so Critser visits a meeting of the Caloric Restriction Society. In the expectation of living longer, this dedicated group of people voluntarily starve themselves - sometimes eating meals gram by gram from a pharmacist's weighing scale, or meditating over a breakfast of five blueberries and three potato chips.

Others claim that the secret to keeping ageing at bay is to maintain youthful levels of hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone, and Critser talks to some of the most vocal doctors touting these hormonal therapies, as well as some of the sceptics.

Then we're off to look at a third approach: let ageing happen, but simply replace the worn-out parts with bioengineered substitutes, much like vintage car buffs who keep their vehicles running for decades by repairing the broken bits.

As he sorts through all this, Critser seems drawn to the eccentrics and fruit-loops that inhabit the fringes of the field. Unfortunately, this often leads him to neglect the less flamboyant scientists in the mainstream. For example, one potential treatment for ageing involves preventing the gradual erosion of telomeres, the caps at the ends of each chromosome.

There has been plenty of good work done on the role telomeres play in ageing - with inconclusive results - but Critser largely ignores this in favour of a former farm-implement salesman hawking an unproven plant extract alleged to preserve telomeres.

I was left with the sense that Critser himself isn't sure what to believe and what to scoff at, so he tosses us all the possibilities to let us make up our own minds. That certainly makes for an entertaining read, but New Scientist readers are likely to feel that when it comes to the meat of the science, Critser's book is rather meagre fare.

Book Information:
Eternity Soup: Inside the quest to end aging by Greg Critser
Harmony, $26

Given that testosterone lowers the immune system, I'm not sure I like that idea much. Although that idea seems to be under question a lot these days.

greg critset
on January 28, 2010 4:17 PM

Thanks for the nice review. greg critser

sp in kansas
on January 29, 2010 6:48 AM

I must say, I am always amused when I read that members of the Calorie Restriction Society are suppose to obsess over grams of food. My husband has been a CR guy for over 5 years now and has tracked the benefits at his website: http://www.nbrhd.net/CR/CR.htm
His health is excellent which his blood work and physical exams show--not bad for a guy over 60.

Since I do most of the cooking around the house, I've had to learn the basics of CR--this is it in a nutshell: Eat the most nutrient dense food to cover 100% of your daily nutrition needs. There are no special diets--we tend to eat a plant-based diet with a few servings of fish a week, lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds and nuts (in limited quantities). We tend to avoid junk good, lots of red meat, dairy, cheese, and processed food. The goal is not only living longer--but living longer in good health.
Thanks, I wish CR had an honest overview, without the sensational hype.

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